CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. – Southeast Missouri women's volleyball outlasted Missouri Baptist, 3-0, in an exhibition match Monday afternoon at Houck Field House. 
 
In the second-ever exhibition volleyball match in Southeast program history, the Redhawks left their home gymnasium with a 25-18, 25-20, 26-24 victory over a high-caliber opponent. 
 
"Missouri Baptist has historically been a very good team," head coach Julie Yankus said of the Spartans who were semifinalists in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) National Tournament in 2017 with an overall record of 34-9. "They are a championship level team in the NAIA every year. We knew it would be a challenge and by no means overlooked them. It was nice to see us push through and get the victory against a very good team."
 
Yankus started a lineup that mixed both experience and youth. Sophomores Maggie Adams and Laney Malloy (transfer) joined upperclassmen Haley Bilbruck, Madara Bajare and Krista Berns on the court. Freshman Claire Ochs started at setter and defensively, Ally Dion started as libero. 
 
"I think Claire Ochs had a great first performance as a freshman here," Yankus said of Ochs who unofficially had 26 assists and 13 digs. "As a setter you run the floor and I think she stayed composed and did a lot of really good things for us. She played her game and did a good job running the offense."
 
Malloy unofficially posted five kills in the opening set on a .400 hitting clip while Bajare chipped in two winners (.500) in the first set.
 
"I think Laney Malloy had a great start to this match," Yankus said of the sophomore transfer from Illinois-Chicago. "She came out strong and was solid in six rotations for us. She had great first contact in serve receive and she really found a way to score quite a bit."
 
In the second set, Mikayla Kuhlmann unofficially paced the Redhawks with five kills (11 total) on a .417 hitting percentage. Bilbruck unofficially tallied three kills (seven total) in the third set and Berns posted two (.500 in third set) of her five total kills in that same set. 
 
Southeast unofficially out blocked the Spartans in the match, 9-6.
 
Dion unofficially led the team with 14 digs. 
 
The Redhawks will head back to the drawing board and continue practicing before the Troy Invitational in Troy, Alabama, Aug. 24-25. Southeast will also host a free intrasquad scrimmage on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Houck Field House.
 
"Now we work on the things that we struggled with today," Yankus said. "We have 11 days until our first official match. Luckily that is quite a bit of time to tweak some of the things that we saw today. It's harping a lot on our first ball contacts and making sure we continue to work on our offensive shots."
 
• Southeast and Missouri Baptist agreed to play a fourth set which the Spartans won 25-16. 
• Monday's exhibition match marks the second-straight exhibition against a team with ties to assistant coach Bob Crank. Crank coached at Quincy (2017 exhibition) and was a player and coach at Missouri Baptist.